Book 1: Chapter 6 Summary

Chapter 6 houses the conversation between Selden and Lily that reveals their true feelings for each other. The two have an afternoon together bought by Lily's lie to Percy Gryce about a headache. The weather is perfect, and after walking for a while they decide to sit down. Lily feels at this moment something that she compares to a brief love affair she had with a man named Herbert Melson in her youth. She notes that she has experienced love with fortunes or careers, but that what she feels for Selden at that moment was for him alone, not a mere "blind groping of the blood." She has concrete reasons for her feelings for him, and, having nothing to do with his fortunes, she is forced to examine what it is she likes about him. Wharton describes him as tall, cultivated, with...